Category Archives: Philosophy

The Kekulé Problem

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“The Kekulé Problem” is a 2017 nonfiction essay by writer Cormac McCarthy for the Santa Fe Institute. It was his first published work of nonfiction. He theorizes about the nature of the unconscious mind and its separation from human language. The unconscious, according to McCarthy, “is a machine for operating an animal” and that “all animals have an unconscious.” McCarthy goes on to postulate that language is purely a human cultural creation, and not a biologically determined phenomenon. (Wikipedia)

“You may have read a thousand books and be able to discuss any one of them without remembering a word of the text.”

“The unconscious wants to give guidance to your life in general but it doesn’t care what toothpaste you use.”

“The unconscious seems to know a great deal. What does it know about itself? Does it know that it’s going to die? What does it think about that?”

The essay checked a lot of my boxes: awareness, consciousness, ego, thoughts.

How to Remember You’re Alive

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“One way to appreciate virtually any moment of your life is to pretend that the whole thing is already over.

Your life came and went a long time ago, but for some reason you’ve just been sent back to this random moment, here in this office chair, or in line at Home Depot.

It isn’t clear why you’ve been sent back. Maybe it was a cosmic accounting error, or a boon from a playful God. All you know is that you’re here again, walking the earth, having been inexplicably returned to the temporary and mysterious state of Being Alive. Continue reading →

So what next?

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“The first step is to tone down the prophecies of doom and switch from panic mode to bewilderment. Panic is a form of hubris. It comes from the smug feeling that one knows exactly where the world is heading: down. Bewilderment is more humble and therefore more clear-sighted. Do you feel like running down the street crying “The apocalypse is upon us”? Try telling yourself, “No, it’s not that.Truth is, I just don’t understand what’s going on in the world.”

— 21 Lessons for the 21st Century (2018)

Reality

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My current view of Reality is a jigsaw puzzle with an infinite number of pieces, scattered across a table of infinite size. I can see only a few nearby bits of the puzzle’s image. Pieces snap into place by some unseen cosmic hand but I only see those close to me. I am overwhelmed by the number of pieces and the impossibility of finding where each fits. But they do and, in time, a little more of the picture can be made out. And I think, “Of course. It couldn’t have been otherwise.”

Time: Do past, present and future exist all at once?

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Near the end of the video there’s a reference to presentism and eternalism.

“Philosophical presentism is the view that neither the future nor the past exists. In some versions of presentism, the view is extended to timeless objects or ideas (such as numbers). According to presentism, events and entities that are wholly past or wholly future do not exist at all. Presentism contrasts with eternalism and the growing block theory of time, which hold that past events, like the Battle of Manzikert, and past entities, like Alexander the Great’s warhorse Bucephalus, really exist although not in the present. Eternalism extends to future events as well.” (Wikipedia)

Most of my reading (and many hours of meditation) makes me lean toward presentism. It’s always now. But –as suggested in the video– physicists insist the math argues for eternalism. And I’d kind of like for that to be “true” as well. Perhaps both can be true, depending on what time it is.

Bubbles

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I’m sitting on the edge of the Grand Canyon, my feet hanging over the rim. I’m facing the setting sun and the light is painting the canyon walls. Somewhere far below, out of site, someone or some thing is blowing soap bubbles and I’m watching them drift slowly up and out of sight. Sometimes the bubbles are few and far between, other times a continuous stream, too many to count. But they never seem to stop completely.

From a distance, they’re just empty soap bubbles but if I bring my attention to particular bubble, I see it is filled with people, places and things. A tiny world that I recognize. My world.

If I look closely enough and long enough, I’m drawn into the bubble. I’m no long sitting on the canyon rim but part of the story unfolding in the bubble. Unlike most of the bubbles I’ve observed, this one doesn’t pop or float away. The canyon and the other bubbles no longer exist or, perhaps, I am just unaware of them.

Eventually, this bubble bumps into another bubble and the two merge, as bubbles often do. Sometimes these new bubbles are filled with a future world, sometimes the past. The worlds can be wonderful or awful but they’re always completely “real.”

I can spend hours moving from bubble to bubble, having completely forgotten about the view from the canyon rim. Every bubble is small and fragile and can be popped with the slightest touch but, from within, it’s difficult to remember this. Or the Me sitting on the canyon rim.

Ah! There I am. I’m back, watching the bubbles. How long, I wonder, was I trapped inside these shiny little things, drifting up and out of the canyon? How much of the spectacular sunset did I miss?

Time to grow up

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“We live infinitesmally short lifespans on an insignificant speck of dust in space, with delusions of grandeur, when the best we can achieve, which is pretty good, is friendship, love and to a small extent, self-awareness. We’re going to get smart now, and learn to be the humble mortals that we are. Or we’re going to cease to exist. In other words, it’s time for the human race to grow up.”

— Dave Winer

The Way We Were

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Some thoughts on the “Back to work! Back to school! Return to normal!” controversy. Let me say up front, I don’t have to work (retired) and I don’t have children so you might say I don’t have a dog in this hunt (except to the extent everything is connected to everything. Totally.)

I’m not convinced that most politicians really give a shit about getting kids back in school, except that it’s necessary in order for mom and dad to get back to work. If every child in America missed a year of school it wouldn’t be the end of the world. The end of the parents’ sanity perhaps. No, I think there’s something deeper at work here. Allow me to share my theory (which I pulled out of my ass).

The Brush Fire Analogy

Back when I watched network and cable news shows, the raging brush fires in the western states was a staple. And every so often we were treated to a forester explaining we needed fires like this every so often to burn off the underbrush and if we don’t let that happen, well you get a worse fire. After the fires burn out we get video of blackened hillsides and scorched earth. But in a few years nature recovers. No big deal for Nature, but not so good for the folks who built multi-million dollar homes in the wilderness.

Where was I going with this? Oh, yeah. The reason (okay, one of the reasons) so many people are frantic to “get back to normal” is they fear they might not get back to normal. To the way we were before the pandemic. Now, they can’t imagine what that might look like but they’re pretty sure they wouldn’t like it.

If we survive the pandemic (and whatever comes after the pandemic), most folks assume/hope/believe life will be pretty much like it was before. And the longer it takes us to get there, the greater the chance it won’t be. And that is terrifying for most folks. Their sense of self (who they are) is all tangled up in familiar institutions and routines and relationships. Blow all that up and you blow them up. In truth, things are never they way they were but it usually happens so slowly we don’t notice.

“Don’t do anything”

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An explanation of meditation by S. N. Goenka:

“Don’t try to control the breath or to breathe in any particular way. Just observe the reality of the present moment, whatever it may be. When the breath comes in, you are just aware — now the breath is coming in. When the breath goes out, you are just aware — now the breath is going out. And when you lose your focus and your mind starts wandering in memories and fantasies, just remain aware — now my mind has wandered away from the breath.”